


Pavlov's Bell

by TheShinySword



Series: Tokyo Incidents [3]
Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Break Up, Chisato Shirasagi: Not Much Better, Cigarettes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Moca Aoba: Human Disaster, Still pretty funny!, alcohol use, discussion of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:33:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24205972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShinySword/pseuds/TheShinySword
Summary: >come get ur X>srsly help>trapped in my apt by kaoru setaChisato Shirasagi is not having a good night.
Relationships: Aoba Moca & Mitake Ran, Aoba Moca/Shirasagi Chisato, Shirasagi Chisato & Seta Kaoru
Series: Tokyo Incidents [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1625191
Comments: 18
Kudos: 117





	Pavlov's Bell

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to The Rat's Nest.

There were five things Chisato Shirasagi wished she could erase from her memory more than anything else:

First, the unflinching smiles on the committee of producers’ and agents’ and publicsts’ faces as they told her Pastel*Palettes was being disbanded.

Second, the website ‘Is Chisato Shirasagi 18 Yet’, found in a moment of self-searching weakness when she was sixteen years old. The website had not been updated since the word ‘no’ was replaced with a giant bold ‘YES’.

Third, the first time she looked over an audience and saw the pride on her parents’ faces.

Fourth, Kaoru Seta.

Fifth, the agonized look on Moca Aoba’s face as she ran out of Chisato’s apartment two weeks ago.

But memories didn’t work the way she wanted to, so she was left drinking aged whiskey in a room dyed in blue light. She didn’t drink to get drunk. She didn’t drink to forget. She just drank to hurt a little, and to have something to keep her company as she lounged on her couch in her empty apartment.

Chisato hated this fucking couch so much. Nothing good ever happened on the fucking couch. Not even fucking on the fucking couch was really fun, it always turned her back into a nightmare of knots. The couch was a miserable roll of denim pulled over something so hard and lumpy it might as well have been stone and yet here Chisato had sat every night for two weeks flicking her phone on and off like a lighter.

There was little part of her that still held onto the mad hope that if she sent the pictures on her phone—taken in HD by Hina Hikawa with the best camera she could afford—to one of those tabloids that already cared too much about her personal life it would finally be over. Surely the agency would end her contract if the world saw the great Chisato Shirasagi with a pair of breasts in her face. If they could only see the woman she really was.

But they wouldn’t really care, would they? The agency had never really given a shit who she really was. What did it matter if she was a lesbian if she made money for them? They banked on her ‘purity’ and it was more than enough for them to pay off any tabloid, smother any scoop, and invent every excuse for her behavior. She’d been a fool to ever think otherwise, but she’d let the fantasy take her. It was such an easy thing to blame her struggles on instead of admitting the problem was inborn.

And then she saw Moca Aoba’s face and she remembered she lived in the real world. Her life was not a fantasy that could be fixed with a grand and stupid romantic gesture and it never had been. The thing she’d wanted to save had already been broken with her own two hands and she had to let the pieces go. The problem wasn’t the world she lived in, it was Chisato Shirasagi.

And so Chisato drank and with every sip came another memory because the drink didn’t make the memories die, it only made them come faster.

She was seventeen when she had her first drink at an industry party: A martini requested in a panic when a man old enough to know she was too young begged to buy her a drink. It was the first drink she could remember the name of. He’d called her taste mature. She learned gin hurts in the roof of the mouth even when only sipped. She managed to lose him on the way to the bathroom and dumped the martini in a shrub.

She was nineteen when she drank her first scotch. The president of the agency poured her a glass without asking as she signed away the next ten years of her life to the agency that had owned the previous ten. “To the future,” he cheered as he handed her piss colored liquid in a high lipped glass. Who’s future he didn’t specify. He bragged about the age of the liquid before downing it like a shot. Chisato couldn’t get the scotch to her lips. The scent assaulted her nose before it could draw close. Like a knife in her nostril. She pretended to drink so she could sign the contract and go home.

She was 20 when she had her first bourbon. Her first legal drink and her first drink after her first breakup. Chisato had spent the last year becoming a regular at a series of back alley bars that only sat three and didn’t care about IDs or pop stars. She wanted something different for her new life, to try something different so she recited a line from a role she had played: “bourbon neat, top shelf”, and found the burning down her throat finally more pleasant than not. She and Kaoru were back together before the week’s end.

That was the thing Chisato liked about liquor: she had had to suffer to a grow a taste for it. She drank the poison long enough and her body finally craved it.

Bourbon became her drink of choice, like with college it was best to have a major with liquor. Drinking it straight impressed men enough to make them pretend to take her seriously and made her fellow actresses titter about how they couldn’t possibly drink anything without three fruity additives. Of course they couldn’t, they had no idea what it felt like to suffer long enough that you learn to like it. Chisato had twenty two years of practice.

The phone in her hand buzzed. Chisato tossed it down the couch before she could see what new strategy Kaoru was employing to get her to respond. It had been a month since they’d broken up for the third time—since Chisato broke them up. This time it would stick. This time Chisato would make it stick. This time there would be no crawling back disguised in fake reluctance. This time she wouldn’t answer any late night calls, she wouldn’t open the texts, she would return every bouquet of flowers that appeared on her doorstep, she would even move if she had to. Kaoru was so certain she could pull Chisato up but Chisato was only ever going to drag Kaoru down to drown. No more.

Her phone buzzed again.

Even if Chisato didn’t have it in her heart to block Kaoru’s number.

Chisato eyed the phone tossed by her feet. Her glass dangled by its rim from the tips of her fingers. She set it down on a water stained coaster. It buzzed again. She reached for it.

If there was any kindness in the world she would never see Kaoru Seta again.

**> come get ur X**

** >srsly help**

** >trapped in my apt by kaoru seta**

But there was no kindness in the world, there was only Moca Aoba.

* * *

Moca had once read that drinking a beer was like drinking a loaf of bread. Calorically at least. The taste wasn’t even close but for that reason and that reason alone she considered drinking beer a part of her brand, even if she was secretly a little more fond of a chardonnay over a pale lager.

But there was a weird kind of beauty to the steel cans of Japanese beers. It felt like a giant waste of resources to forge a can out of steel but Moca liked the weight of it in her hand and the heavy clunk it made as she tapped it with the back of her nail. Even after she’d dumped its liquid contents into the bottomless pit of her throat it still had a heft, like it lifting it to her face and down constituted a workout.

The real appeal of the steel can to Moca was how easy it was to stack. She’d spent the better part of an hour forming the perfect beer can pyramid and the steel made it sturdy—sturdish. Ten cans in a triangle on the bottom. Then a layer of six with a final layer of three cans before the very top. Sapporo, Asahi, and Kirin: the holy trinity of Japanese beers available at your local convenience store. Moca started picking up a can after her shifts two weeks ago but that quickly turned into bringing home two, then three. It was only practical,after all, she needed to finish the pyramid.

This was a great way to spend a Saturday night, Moca lied to herself, finishing off one last Sapporo Premium to stand as the sparkling top of the pyramid. Even Ran was interested in Moca’s arts and crafts project on the couch’s side table. Well, at least Ran turned away from the TV to watch Moca scope out the final placement and that was more than Ran had been interested in anything that wasn’t green and leafy in a while.

“You’re going to knock it over,” Ran warned from the floor in the same tired and bored tone she’d started to say everything.

But Moca still reveled in the attention, no matter how minor. She wiggled the can in her hand, pretending to drop and catch it just in time to save her pyramid from a messy fate. Ran rolled her eyes but kept watching. Moca tossed the bottle into the air with a flick of her wrist fully intending to swipe it out of the air at the last possible moment to riotous cheers (pleased grunt) from Ran. It was going to be incredible (mildly entertaining)! Except—

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Someone hammered on their front door exactly as Moca’s arm swung down. Moca jerked just slightly, but enough to send her arm flying into the holy can trinity, sending the whole thing crashing down and into a jumbled mess. The ungainly clattering of metal on metal on hardwood echoed throughout the room. Moca could only stare with an open gawking mouth as her precious pyramid was transformed into yet another pile in an apartment of piles: piles of laundry, piles of dishes, piles of piles.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

And whoever was at the door was awfully impatient.

Moca and Ran were united in their confusion: the knock was weird. Not the sound, it was a normal knocking sound, a little extra aggressive but normal. But it was that the sound existed at all—that anyone had crawled their way up to Moca and Ran’s apartment to bang on the door—that was so odd. They didn’t have guests. Not out of any principal but there were only three people who might come to visit: one was in Kyoto and the other two insisted on meeting somewhere in the middle between their two apartments on the opposite ends of the Tokyo metropolis.

The good news was it meant they never had to worry about making the apartment presentable. The bad news was it meant they never had to worry about making the apartment presentable.

Occasionally, Moca and Ran managed to summon some sort of pseudo enthusiasm for household chores. They’d get gripped by a certain kind of fresh-scented mania and gather their trash and scrub their floors and make the place look like people could actually live there. But they hadn’t had the energy since they renewed the lease and the apartment’s messiness was starting to border on an identity. What was the point of storage solutions when stacking things in a lopsided tower was clearly superior to anything Moca could buy in a Scandinavian store?

BAM! BAM! BAM!

This knock was joined by an angry woman’s shout from the other side of the door. “AOBA-SAN!”

“Who the hell calls you ‘Aoba-san’?” Ran glared across the living room to their front door. They didn’t live in a place fancy enough for an entry hall. The entrance, the living room and the kitchen were all one continuous room, the spaces only delineated from one another by the refrigerator on one side and couch on the other. Their front door lived somewhere in the middle.

“Plenty of people. Moca-chan is a well respected member of the community,” Moca protested.

“Who calls you ‘Aoba-san’ but also is crazy enough to bang on our door at nine on a Saturday?” Ran emphasized Saturday as if it was weird to do anything past nine on the weekend. She struggled to her feet, muttering something incomprehensible as she crossed towards the door. “Name one person.”

Only one person came to mind. “Kaoru-san used to.”

Ran sighed. “Why would Kaoru Seta be at our front door?” Ran carefully lifted the peep hole cover. She slammed it shut as soon as her eye peeked through, “Why is Kaoru Seta at our front door?”

“It’s classified~.” She had a guess but that guess was probably wrong… probably.

Ran peeked through the little round window in the door again, “she looks really upset.” Ran turned to Moca, “What did you do?”

“Moca-chan asked for acting lessons and they’re starting now?” Moca shrugged, “Surprise?”

“Should I let her in?”

“No!” Moca surprised herself with her quick and loud refusal. Moca had a hunch that letting Kaoru inside would be a very capital ‘B’ capital ‘I’ Bad Idea.

“I can hear you two!” The voice was unmistakable now that she knew it was Kaoru.. She hadn’t heard it in years but it was almost offensive she hadn’t immediately recognized the melted chocolate smooth voice of the former high school prince, even disguised by an unbecoming anger.

Ran glanced between Moca and the door. “Call Tomoe.”

“Right now?”

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Ran grabbed at her ears. “Seta-senpai is Tomoe’s territory.”

Moca had never been particularly close with their lesbian thespian senpai but Tomoe and Himari had kept in contact with Kaoru all these years. She knocked aside a few stray fallen beer cans to reach her phone. In a few clicks she was staring at a ringing phone icon, trying to start a video call with Tomoe.

“What’s up Moca?” The screen buzzed to life. The top half of Tomoe’s head, from her flaring nostrils up, appeared on screen, vivisected by a brand new jagged crack down the middle of Moca’s phone. Stupid steel cans.

The camera shifted as Tomoe tried to fit more of her face into the frame and instead gave Moca an impromptu tour of her bedroom. They’d added more self-assembled plywood furniture since the last time Moca had visited—sometime around when they’d moved in two years ago. A bookshelf, a nightstand, two separate dressers. Something uncomfortable twitched in Moca’s chest. It looked like the kind of room one of their parents would put together.

“Tomo-chin~ I have a question~.”

And then Tomoe’s face was back. All the screen space not taken up by her face was occupied by her ever-growing red mane. “Hmm?”

“Why’s Kaoru Seta trying to break down Moca-chan’s door?” Moca asked breezily.

“Oh cool, she found your place.”

Ran yanked Moca’s arm towards her face so she could glare at Tomoe directly, “Tomoe. What did you do?”

“I told Senpai where you live,” Tomoe said, in the breezy tone she said everything she wasn’t shouting.

“Why?!” Ran groaned.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Tomoe frowned, “Because Moca slept with her girl!”

“What?!” Ran let go of Moca’s arm, letting the screen snap back to Moca’s face.

Moca chuckled in an attempt at acting casual. “What kind of weird gossip is Tomo-chin listening to these days?”

Tomoe sighed and adjusted herself on her bed and on the screen. “She told me at Boys’ Brunch this morning.”

Moca had heard of Tomoe and Kaoru’s infamous boys brunches, infamous only because Moca wasn’t invited. Not that Moca ever asked to be invited or let Tomoe know she was interested or even actually wanted to go to. She simply relied on good old fashioned telepathy to relay her desire to be asked so she could politely refuse.

“And you gave her our address,” Ran gaped in disbelief, realized Tomoe couldn’t see her disbelief and pulled the phone back towards her face to properly express said disbelief.

“There’s a bro code,” Tomoe said with so much earnestness it made Moca want to pat her on the head and tell her she was a good dog.

“Wow Tomo-chin, after all we’ve been through, you betray Moca-chan like this?” Moca’s act was at least 25% sincere. “Are we not bros?” Maybe 50%.

“No. We’re best friends. That’s a completely different set of rules.”

“It’s true,” Himari’s sleepy voice drifted in from off camera. Moca suspected Himari was the author of this specific ruleset.

“It’s okay to sell out your best friend to your bro?”

“Moca,” Tomoe looked at her with the same vibe as youtube vlogger laying out rules for girls who wanted to date her, “I would die for you but ya had sex with her girlfriend so if Kaoru wants to kill you that’s her right.”

“They’re broken up!” Moca protested.

“So?!”

“Tomo-chin~. You don’t get to be mad about your ex sleeping with someone~.” Moca had never had an ex but she swore if she ever did she wouldn’t get involved in the woman’s not-quite-sex sex life.

“You really did sleep with her?” Ran pulled back with a small voice and distant eyes.

Moca barely heard Kaoru shout her name from outside. “Aoba-san!”

“No but—” If there was any doubt in her mind that she was a bad person, it vanished with the little surge of happiness she felt at the hint of hurt on Ran’s face. Was the idea that maybe Moca really had moved on painful to her?

Moca swallowed dryly, “Yeah, I did.”

“Good for you,” Ran muttered with the kind of dismissiveness Moca hadn’t heard since they were kids as she wandered off to have another look through the peephole.

Molars dug into the inside of her cheeks as Moca tried to make the pain remind herself not to have hope. It was a song and dance she knew well and the grand finale was never hers to enjoy.

“Moca? You still there? I can’t see anything.” Tomoe’s voice rose out of the phone that fallen into Moca’s lap.

She lifted it back up to her face with a smeared on smile, “Yo~ just planning out how best to beg for mercy. Do you have any feedback on Moca-chan’s ‘pleading for her life’ face?” Moca shot her very best and most pathetic puppy eyes at the screen.

Hearing Tomoe’s barking laugh in response almost calmed Moca’s thundering heart. “Senpai’s a good person, you’ll be okay Moca. Just talk things out.”

“Why don’t you come here and talk things out for Moca-chan?” Please come, she added in her head.

“Some things you gotta handle yourself.”

“Bro code?”

“Bro code.”

Tomoe shifted again. The tiniest hint of pink appeared at the side of the screen, cuddling closer to Tomoe’s red. “Don’t die Moca, I’d miss you.”

“Well, not too much to miss.”

“Moca—”

“Love and peace Tomo-chin!” Moca cheered with finality as she closed the phone before Tomoe could say one more thing. She turned to Ran at the door, “How’s the prince?”

“Sitting down now.” Ran leaned against the door. “I guess it’s fine, it’s not like we were going out anyway.”

It was true though now that Moca couldn’t leave her apartment she found she had a pressing need to escape. She was a prisoner in her own home, she decided dramatically, and Moca never stayed anywhere that tried to make her.

Moca flipped her busted cellphone in the air. There was someone else she could ask for help. With her offhand she swiped the phone from the air. But she didn’t particularly want to see that person.

Again Moca threw the phone. It’d be an awful hit to her pride to ask that person for help. Again Moca caught it.

Toss. But if a self-purported best friend couldn’t help, why not the sort of person who could never be her friend? Catch.

Text.

She probably wouldn’t answer anyway. Chisato Shirasagi surely had places to be on a Saturday night, fancy dinner parties with boring stuffy people who didn’t deserve her attention. Though nobody deserved her attention and Moca couldn’t decide if that was a compliment or an insult. But she thumbed out a second text and then a third anyway.

Chisato didn’t respond literally instantly so Moca was forced to assume she’d be no help whatsoever. Truly a tragedy that Chisato Shirasagi wouldn’t be gracing them with their presence. Whatever would sweet little Moca-chan do? Die? Possibly.

Eh. If Moca died, she died.

“Ran~,” Moca moseyed off the couch, “let the scary sad lesbian in the house.”

“Moca,” Ran whispered her name as a warning, “are you sure? You just said—”

“If we don’t our landlady is probably gonna kick us out~.” Moca stepped towards the door, voice singing, and stopped just short enough that it could still open all the way. “Moca-chan’s not ready to move under a bridge~.”

“Okay,” Ran nodded curtly and reached for the door. “Seta-san. We’re opening it.” With a click and strong tug to unstick their ancient apartment door, Ran pulled open the front door.

Moca didn’t recognize the woman in the doorway. She was as tall as Moca remembered with that long tied back purple hair she’d seen so many times on Himari’s phone. A little older, but so was Moca, more worn in the face, slightly heavier as age had begun to set in. But it was the eyes, red rimmed and wild, that Moca didn’t know anymore.

“Moca Aoba!” The person who looked like Kaoru shouted. “I demand satisfaction!”

The answer clicked for Moca. That was Kaoru Seta’s body in her doorway but the person wasn’t Kaoru Seta. She was playing a part: the jilted lover come to win her lady’s honor back. Which made Moca the dastard who ruined the happy couple. And made Ran…

Moca caught Ran looking between Kaoru and Moca with that combination of confusion, anger and that little bit of hurt that Moca kept clinging to like a life preserver. Ran was the fourth point in the love rhombus. What an awkward shape they had and no one even had the decency to be in love with Moca. Well, if she was going to be a side character in someone else’s epic love story, she might as well be the villain.

“Oh ho~.” Moca wished she had a fan to snap or sword to wave. Props always made the part. “You want satisfaction from little ‘ol Moca-chan?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Or maybe it was the exact right thing. Kaoru swung for Moca with a lopping fist just off kilter enough that Moca could hop away and towards the kitchen without coming close to contact.

“What the hell?” Ran shouted, rushing to join Moca.

“Dear Ran-chan I bear no ill will towards you, my feud is entirely with Aoba-san and her lascivious transactions!” Kaoru paced away from Moca along the outside wall and towards the kitchen. “I have been besmirched!”

“I’m sure we can unsmirch you,” Moca said with raised arms as she crossed the invisible line between the kitchen and the living room: the corner where the cabinets began along the wall.

“I demand a duel!” Kaoru barked, searching the kitchen for something she struggled to find. The Kaoru Moca remembered made a quick, confused return, “Where is your knife block?”

Moca laughed, “We don’t have knife block kinda money in this house.”

Kaoru scanned the bare counter in pitying confusion, “What do you use to cut vegetables?”

“You are severely overestimating Moca-chan’s health,” Moca grinned, “The knife is in the second drawer from the left.” There were only two drawers in the kitchen.

“MOCA!” Ran shook her stunned silence enough to shout. “Do not tell her where the knife is!”

“I just wanna see what happens.”

What happened was Kaoru pulled open the drawer on the far left, found it empty of pointed stabbing implements and opened the second one. There she drew the 100 yen store fifteen centimeter knife Moca and Ran used for every task that needed a quick stab before whipping back to Moca with her new weapon in hand.

“As the bard said: ‘En garde!’” Kaoru lunged forward with the kitchen knife pointed to Moca’s heart but stopped short a meter away. Her other arm flew back into a perfect fencing form. Not that Moca was qualified to judge but it looked perfect enough from the pointy end of the blade. “Draw your weapon!”

“Unfortunately that’s Moca-chan’s only knife.”

“This isn’t a game Moca!” Ran growled, roughly grabbing Moca by the shoulder and shoving her towards the wall behind Ran’s thin frame.

“What are you doing?” Moca asked, trying to move forward around Ran.

“What do you think? I’m trying to keep Kaoru from murdering you!” Ran shoved Moca back again, her body firmly planted between Moca and the flimsy knife. Ran’s arm flailed around for anything she could use to counter Kaoru and only found the old pot they used for Ramen.

“You think she’s going to KILL me?” Moca peeked around Ran’s shoulder to Kaoru’s flushed and flustered face. “Are you going to kill me?”

Kaoru shrugged the arm with the blade, “Probably not.”

“She says probably not! Those are good odds.”

“Moca!” How many times had Moca heard her name shouted in exasperation just like this. Ran waved the pot in the air. “This isn’t time to joke around!”

“It’s Kaoru~.” Somehow saying that didn’t fill Moca with as much confidence as she hoped it would. But she kept the quiver out of her voice.

“She’s an actor! They’re wildly unpredictable. Also she has a knife, that you gave her!”

For the first time, Moca remembered to be nervous. She had quite a bit of familiarity with the unpredictability of actors and she wanted Ran to have nothing to do with that. It was a settled matter in Moca’s mind. It was one thing to risk Moca’s useless life but it was unacceptable to risk Ran’s. She shoved harder as Ran resisted. “Moca-chan can handle this.”

“Hell no you can’t! I’m not leaving you to get murder-suicided by a plum tree!”

Kaoru balked, the knife slumping slightly in her hand. “I’m not going to _kill_ Aoba-san. I am only going to fight her for Chii-chan’s honor.”

“Who?” Moca and Ran asked, bewildered, in unison.

“Chisato Shirasagi!” Kaoru shouted with a wanton slash in the air. The thrust was fatal. At least to the blade. It slid off the plastic handle, the discount knife clattering uselessly to the floor.

“Aw, there goes our only knife,” Moca mourned.

“Moca,” at least this time there was some affection in the way Ran groaned her name.

“What? How’s Moca-chan going to open ramen now?” The joke helped distract from the slimy feeling creeping up her throat as shadows played across Kaoru’s face.

The actor tossed the handle to the side, the red plastic skidding beside its blade. She slumped against the cabinet, dripping down torso first with legs following slowly behind until she curled onto the floor with her knees around her chin. The manic anger she had emitted as part of the role she put on was completely replaced with sorrowful exhaustion of the actual, exhausted Kaoru Seta.

Ran finally relaxed her grip on Moca’s arm. Not exactly the way she’d always dreamed Ran would bruise her but something something beggars and choosers. She slipped around her best friend and stepped carefully so she could face Kaoru on her kitchen floor properly.

They didn’t talk for a long time. All three waited posed as the points of an irregular triangle for someone else to make the first move. Ran and Moca tried to converse with eyes alone but more and more Ran’s eyes were becoming a mystery to Moca.

“Kaoru…san, are you okay?” Moca nipped her tongue, that was the stupidest thing in the world to ask at this exact moment in time. “Can Moca-chan help?” No, _that_ was the stupidest thing in the world to ask.

Kaoru looked up with those red rimmed eyes that Moca knew well from her own reflection. “Aoba-san, I’m sorry but I can barely stand to look at you right now.”

“Ah.” Moca tried to process the unique collection of feelings in her chest: sadness, guilt, even a touch of uncomfortable pride. Lots of awful feelings tonight. “Moca-chan’s never been hated by a minor celebrity before. If it’s any consolation, I feel the same way.”

She slumped forward, her bangs falling over her eyes as she muttered, “It’s not but thank you for trying Aoba-san.”

Another pang of guilt. It felt like the shitty knife on the floor had managed to reach her chest. Moca wasn’t really trying, was she? Here was someone on her floor feeling something rawer and more real than Moca ever had and she was letting Kaoru hang on to a misunderstanding. Moca sighed, “Kaoru-san. I’m sorry, Moca-chan let a little lie run wild there. Chisato and I didn’t sleep together.”

“But… you told Tomoe…” Ran’s worry melted into the dull exhaustion Moca had become used to.

Moca shrugged.

Kaoru couldn’t keep a flicker of hope off her face, even as she started to counter, “But Hina said—”

“Hina may have seen something very misleading. Understandable mistake but I—Moca-chan’s not really Chisato’s type so she’d never—”

“I would have.”

All three of them turned in unison to the front door they’d left open in their rush.

Chisato Shirasagi stepped into the room with careful delicate footsteps, like she was avoiding glass shards scattered around her. She was as put together as Moca expected, as if she’d stepped out of one the countless magazine spreads Moca had skimmed through in the past two weeks and into Moca’s home. It was annoying how Moca’s first thought was how beautiful Chisato looked in her pleated yellow skirt.

Chisato spoke with the calm and unfortunately familiar voice that Moca could never purge from her head. “I didn’t. But I would have, Kaoru.”

Kaoru scrambled to her feet, knocking clumsily against the countertop in her rush. She panted as if standing had taken some great effort as she faced Chisato with quivering limbs.

“Chisato.” There was so much history to just the way Kaoru said Chisato’s name, the same way Moca whispered Ran’s name when no one else could hear.

Moca looked to Ran and could finally read her face again. They shared the same thought: they’d become the intruders. She wanted to reach out and pluck at the tension like a guitar string, play it just right until everyone forgot what they were so tense about to begin with. Turn the nooses around their necks into lassos and trade the execution for a rodeo. But Moca couldn’t open her mouth and all they could do was wait.

Somehow Chisato made their tiny apartment feel as though it had a chasm down the middle. The way she looked at Kaoru was so distant and cold. “We broke up, Kaoru. And now I’m seeing other people. It’s very simple and nothing to act so childishly over.”

Was she lying or acting? Moca couldn’t decide on the difference.

“Chisato,” Kaoru repeated, her voice wavering with pain. “We’ve broken up before, but we always come back together. I assumed—I thought—what has changed?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just go home Kaoru, you are not going to win me back with some grand, empty gesture,” Chisato turned her head away, her teeth grinding in her mouth. “I’m not thinking of you, so don’t think of me.”

“That’s not true.”

It wasn’t Moca’s place to speak but that had never stopped Moca before. The other three all turned to Moca, all shocked to hear her voice. Moca chose to lock eyes with Chisato. The actress had returned her face to stone.

Moca continued, the pieces falling together in her mind as she spoke. “It’s not true that you aren’t thinking about Kaoru-san.”

“This isn’t your business.” It was Chisato’s cold, professional voice.

“Tch tch tch,” Moca waggled her pointer finger side to side. “All business is Moca-chan’s business. There’s no lying in Moca-chan’s house, unless you’re Moca-chan.”

“Moca!” Ran tugged at her arm.

“Come on Ran, I can’t stand to see a couple fight like this. Not when there’s still so much love.”

“Aoba-san?” Kaoru cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

Moca shrugged at Chisato, “You told me you wanted to cause a scandal.” Moca tipped her head to Kaoru. “It’s because of her right? Why else would you try to throw everything away?”

Chisato was so silent Moca knew she’d got it in one. The pictures, the dinner, even that first night in the convenience store in front of the security camera Chisato didn’t know Moca had moved. It had all been for Kaoru.

Kaoru was a little slower on the uptake. “Why?”

“I wanted to be a little less Chisato Shirasagi.” Chisato looked at the tiles on the ground, no doubt lingering on the dust bunnies Moca had sworn again and again that she would clean. “I thought that was the problem. I thought that if I could end my career I—but I was being selfish.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but clearer than a shout. “Even if I could stop being Chisato Shirasagi the actress tomorrow, I would still be Chisato Shirasagi. I will never not be Chisato Shirasagi. The problem isn’t that I have changed Kaoru. It’s that I haven’t.”

“I don’t care!” Kaoru stepped forward, trying to close the insurmountable distance between them. “Even if you’re always the same, I’ll love you no matter what.”

“That’s the problem,” Chisato spoke with such certainty that Kaoru froze her advance. Her eyes squeezed shut. “I’m the one who cares, Kaoru.”

All Moca could think was it was like watching a play: a scene study by two for two. She wanted to call for the curtain to close but there was no choice but to let the actors finish and watch it through to the end.

“We are never going to stop hurting each other. As long as I am the person I am, I will lash out, I will be a coward, I will break your heart over and over.” Chisato’s head swung up and her gaze landed directly on Ran. The actress addressing the audience.

“As long as I have you to comfort me, to tell me I’m okay, that things will be fine, to lie without knowing it’s a lie, I will never change.” Chisato tore her gaze away and finally looked Kaoru in the eyes. “And I can’t stand hurting you anymore. It’s killing me, to kill you so slowly. Can you even see it? How the light keeps dimming in your eyes? How much longer before I snuff out every thing I love about you?”

Kaoru’s face was a contortion of broken tenderness. In a voice soft and jagged like a ripped teddy bear, Kaoru whimpered. “I could never hate you.”

“That’s the problem Kaoru. Maybe you should.”

There was no more air in the room. They would all suffocate there together, stuck in the moment just before curtain call, audience and actor’s feelings mixed up so no one knew whose feelings were who’s. And then…

Kaoru pulled down the curtain. “I understand.” She ran a hand down her face, around her chin and slowly walked past Chisato and towards the door. “Chisato. I will always be on your side.” Her voice broke as she paused in the doorway, “E-even if I cannot be by your side.”

“Kaoru,” Chisato turned and called gently to her back. “You’re the best person I know. That’s why I can’t bear to do this to you any longer.”

“Okay.” And Kaoru Seta left the stage.

Ran was the first of the three remaining to stir. She dashed for the door, pulling her phone from her pocket. “I’m going to call Tomoe.”

And then the audience and actors were reduced to one a piece.

Chisato hadn’t looked at Moca in a long time. Moca carefully approached, like Chisato was a cat she was trying to lure out from under a car. “Hey.”

“I should go.”

Moca reached out for Chisato, her hand curling around Chisato’s thin wrist with the lightest possible force. “Stay.”

Chisato regarded her with nothing but exhaustion. “Let go of me.”

“Moca-chan’s pretty weak,” Moca raised her other arm, flexing pitifully, “if you just pull a little I’ll pop right off.”

Chisato didn’t pull but she glared so harshly it took all of Moca’s willpower not to let go with a shudder. “You saw what happened. Kaoru’s hurt not me.”

Moca let go. “Kaoru-san has people who will take care of her.”

“I…” Chisato wrapped her arms around herself like a shawl. She finally seemed her size. “I have people.”

“It doesn’t matter if you have them if you won’t reach out.”

Chisato’s arms slid down into a stubborn cross. A bit of the woman forged of sharp edges Moca recognized returned, “And what do you suggest, Moca Aoba?”

“Let Moca-chan make you some tea.”

* * *

Moca had never made tea in her in her life but it was simple enough in theory. She wasn’t trying for the fancy sort of tea with the bowing and kimonos and the wacky little bamboo whisk but western sort with little bags and tiny tags where you just dunked it in some hot water and hoped for the best. Yet the three step process—boil, pour and dunk—was made infinitely more complicated by how many times Moca looked over from the kitchen and her sad little ramen pot turned kettle to the impromptu guest sitting at the end of the couch with her arms crossed and hands rubbing her upper arms absently as she single handedly brought up the value of the whole room.

The apartment’s new found quiet was jarring. Instinct compelled Moca to fill the air with a bad pun or a self-indulgent sigh or a bit of ill timed prop comedy but instead she focused on filling pot with probably enough water and the click click click of the stove top’s ignitor coming to life. Chisato Shirasagi brought so many new experiences to her life. She ought to start a points card: reveal ten emotional insecurities to a practical stranger and get a new trauma free! Though, they were hardly strangers anymore were they? Could you really call someone who’d seen you in your underwear and watched emotionally break off a long term relationship a stranger? After a certain point the intimacy was assumed.

Besides Moca had to admit she’d never search every cabinet of her kitchen for a box of black tea she was sure she’d seen once for a stranger. They weren’t strangers, they weren’t friends. What exactly were Moca and Chisato that compelled Moca to ask her to stay? She swung open the cabinet she and Ran had made their pantry: ramen, ramen, a bag of flour optimistically purchased a year ago, ramen and no tea. Moca sighed and let her eyes slip back to her guest. The reason was simple wasn’t it? She just didn’t want Chisato to be alone. She knew the feeling too well to wish it on someone else.

Chisato’s attention was tuned completely to the little greenhouse on the windowsill, looking over every succulent and perennial like she was trying to sketch them into her memory. It was the only thing that set their magnificent garbage heap of a home apart from every other trashy twenty something’s apartment. The little collection of flora was cared for more tenderly than any person could ever hope to be. Maybe in Moca’s next life she’d be born a sprig of aloe vera.

Moca’s search took her to the mug cabinet. At least they had those in spades. Every birthday: Mugs. Every Christmas: Mugs. The perfect gift for the girl with no interests. Sometimes they were heartfelt like the lumpy bun shaped mug from Himari’s brief foray into pottery classes, mostly they were disposable knickknacks but Moca stuffed them in the cabinet either way.

She hovered over her many options before pulling the bun mug out followed by her personal favorite: A world’s best mom of 2005 mug. The aging mug featured a blonde woman with an achingly large grin and manic eyes. Tomoe had picked it up at a thrift store and gifted it to Moca unprompted. It was a work of art.

Moca finished searching the cabinets. If there had ever been a box of tea in the house, it had fled the premises. Still, the water was boiling and the cups were ready and what was tea but fancy hot water anyway, so Moca poured it into empty mugs. With as much care as Moca ever used she took the mugs into her hands and walked towards the couch.

After everything she’d gone through, she was still so put together. The invulnerable Chisato Shirasagi. Maybe she didn’t need Moca’s compassion. Maybe Moca had asked her to stay because _Moca_ didn’t want to be alone.

Chisato turned, her flashing violet eyes piercing through Moca.

“Gah!” Hot water splashed onto Moca’s hand as she jerked back. “Damnit!”

Chisato half rose from the couch. “Are you alright?”

Moca set down a mug and shook off Chisato’s question. “Fortunately, immunity to boiling water is one of Moca-chan’s many special powers.” She winced as she shook out her stinging hand and nodded to the mom mug, “That one’s for you.”

“Thank you,” she daintily picked up the cup. For a second, Moca thought Chisato’s pinky would shoot out like a parody of a fancy lady but even Chisato Shirasagi drank tea like a normal person. Celebrities, they’re just like Moca-chan!

“Careful, it’s very hot.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” Chisato squinted at the design, “This isn’t your mother.”

“She could be my mother.”

“She’s blonde.”

“I’m _almost_ blonde,” Moca protested with a smile as she sat down on the opposite end of the two cushion couch.

Chisato snorted dismissively, “You don’t seem like the mug gifting type.”

“Correct, Moca-chan is the mug getting type.”

“So this was a gift?”

“From Miss Tomoe Udagawa herself for Moca-chan’s twentieth. Picked it up at a thrift store.”

“Featuring the democratically elected world’s best mother of 2005.”

“It was a close race but ultimately dark money interests did win out.”

Chisato pursed her lips, curled slightly in the corners, and blew air across the liquid’s surface, her breath tangling with the steam and sending it spiraling in cattywampus lines to ceiling. When the steam was gone enough for her liking, she sipped. First her eyes widened, almost imperceptibly but Moca was getting better at catching those little micro-movements before Chisato could hide them. Then there was a slight crinkle in her eyes like she was smiling behind the cup, probably as she realized how delicious her water flavored water was. With entirely too much dignity, Chisato set her mug down, world’s best mom facing Moca. “Was that a hint of lemon I tasted?”

“Undertones. They go with the overtones of… chartreuse.” Wait, was chartreuse a fancy plant or a color?

Chisato played along with an exaggerated sniff. “Of course, I knew I sensed some alcohol in here. That’s where it gets the green color from.”

Moca made a mental note to google chartreuse later. “And from the spinach.”

“The classic tea combination of lemon, chartreuse and spinach.” Chisato giggled softly at first but her laughter lasted much longer than the bit deserved and Moca realized with a falling face that tears had started to form in her eyes. Chisato tried to hide her small shuddering breaths with the mug but she couldn’t keep her shoulders from shaking.

Moca leaned forward out of a comforting instinct but hesitated with space still between them. What was she supposed to say? ‘Are you alright?’ That was a terrible question. Chisato was definitely, absolutely not alright. If this was one of her friends she’d hug them tight and let them cry until they were so dried out they became raisins but the idea of holding Chisato seemed taboo, obscene even. Still, she stretched her arm forward. She could manage a comforting ‘there, there’ shoulder pat—

Chisato crashed into Moca with hot water on her lips and for the third time that month Moca found herself enveloped by Chisato Shirasagi.

* * *

Chisato shoved Moca against the inside of her rickety bedroom door. It was stupid but Chisato didn’t really care. She had one tool in her arsenal to get the thoughts in her head to shut up and she would use as much as she had to. Chisato’s arms couldn’t exactly muster enough force for it to be anything more than a strong suggestion but Moca had been eager enough to follow Chisato’s instincts down the hall to her room.

The door rattled under their bodies. Chisato moved her hands to the sides of Moca’s head, pulling her in closer than close with fists digging into that short silver hair. So much shorter than her hands were used to—not the time, not the place. She wouldn’t think about it. Not when she was kissing Moca so hard she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs.She didn’t want to breathe, she wanted that airy light headedness that stifled every thought in her head but a desire to press forward and take some goddamned control.

Moca grabbed at Chisato’s waist like she needed something to hold her up. Moca was cute, she really was, but she needed to figure out the best way to learn was to practice and that Chisato wanted her to practice all she wanted. Then she could stop feeling so guilty about that night in her apartment about the second time they kissed and—

No she wouldn’t remember the second time, she couldn’t remember the second time, if she remembered the second time she’d remember why they stopped and what Moca said and that mirrored pain was burned against the inside of her eyelids and Kao—

Chisato pressed them tighter together. Moca hands squeezed around Chisato with a moan stuck in her throat. If the body was in charge then the brain didn’t think. She needed Moca’s brain to shut down so hers could too. She needed it to keep going, forever and ever, an eternal pause on the reality of a world she was trying to hold together.

But Moca’s hand slipped through the atomic space between their bodies and pressed firmly against Chisato’s chest. Just enough to force their lips apart.

Without lips to distract Chisato felt how desperately she didn’t want to be seen. Moca could look at her body: at her breasts, at her neck, her hair, between her legs if she wanted but if she dared look Chisato in the eyes the actress would break. She hid her face in Moca’s chest, forehead pressed against her collarbone.

“I don’t think this is what you want.” Moca’s voice was low, both heard and felt.

Shame filled Chisato, only matched by a pounding urge to double down and insist again with hands and lips that it was exactly what she wanted. If she was pressed more, just one step further…

But Moca didn’t press, she pulled her hands away but kept the space between them tight. Her voice snuck into Chisato’s ear like a memory of lover’s whisper. “I have my jokes and you have…”

“Sex.”

Moca couldn’t say it, but Chisato knew the truth. She had always known the sort of woman she was and Moca did too. She could feel the words surely on Moca’s tongue: the unwanted comfort, the assurance that she was a good person, that it was okay for her to be this way.

What a cloying word ‘okay’ was. Everyone said it: Kaoru, Kanon, her old idol group, and especially those interchangeable miseries called producers. ‘You’re okay’, they said as if it offered some iota of comfort. They said it as if the pain she held wasn’t felt down to her soul. As if it didn’t live in her bones and tendons and all the parts that made her parts. The hurt was the body and the body was the hurt. Chisato was certain that she never had been and was never going to be ‘okay’ in her entire life and if there was any kindness in the world she would die before someone said it to her again.

“I know.”

But there was no kindness in the world, there was only Moca Aoba.

The two words settled over Chisato like a shock blanket on her shoulders. She stumbled backwards and found Moca’s eyes. But they weren’t Moca’s eyes, they were her own reflected back—like a blue gel stretched over her violet spotlights. Like two mirrors placed opposite one another to reflect into eternity.

She couldn’t breathe for the recognition.

It was so different to be seen.

Chisato didn’t realize she was sobbing until Moca pressed some rag into her hands and led her across the small room to the edge of a mattress haphazardly pushed against the wall. The pain finally hit her as she sat down. The enormity of her loss was enough to swallow her whole. She buried herself in the cloth in her hands as her disgusting, noisy, honest gasps wracked her body.

She cried as she hadn’t cried since she was a child—maybe not even then. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so free to come apart, to let her bits pour all over the floor and not care if she’d be able to throw them into place again. There was no pretense to maintain. Just a soul deep hurt finally allowed to scream out for recognition.

And then she could breathe again. It started in small shaky bursts, half a breath here, half a breath there. She didn’t feel better, but she could feel. The thing about the end of the world was there was some comfort in knowing this was it, the thing she had dreaded for so long was done. Her tears slowed to trickles, her shoulders stopped shaking and Moca Aoba was still with her, sitting patiently beside her on the mattress laid directly against the ground.

Chisato pulled the poor t-shirt she’d been given away from her face, wincing in recognition at the Afterglow logo buried until layers of ruined makeup and snot. “Oh dear, isn’t this important?”

That sad grin she wore whenever her old band came up returned to Moca’s face, “Nah, pretty sure that band’s not having a reunion."

Chisato still felt guilty. “I’ll have it cleaned.”

“Won’t the dry cleaners get suspicious if you keep sending Moca-chan’s old things there?” Moca teased as she jerked her head back to the corner of the room where the red and white plastic bag of Chisato’s usual dry cleaner’s hung just beside Moca’s pristine blue guitar mounted on the wall. Chisato had sent Moca’s abandoned hoodie to be cleaned and delivered to her home.

“Everything can be dry cleaned,” Chisato chided, allowing herself a smile.

“There’s a laundromat down the street, Moca-chan can give you some change tomorrow if you really want to repay me,” Moca checked her phone. “Make that later today.”

“It’s that late?” She sniffed as searched her skirt for the phone hidden in a pocket. Dead, of course, she hadn’t planned on a late night excursion. “I have to get going, I’ve taken so much of your time.”

“The last train left fifteen minutes ago.” Moca shrugged. “You can sleep here. Take the bed.”

That was a kindness too far. “I am not taking your bed Moca. After everything I just did.”

Moca pressed her hand dramatically to her face. “Alas, the couch is not fit for human occupation, so Moca-chan will sleep there. You may enjoy Moca-chan’s luxurious 100 yen store cotton sheets.”

Chisato bounced a little on the bed. It was too springy for sure and desperately needed something other than the floor underneath it. Her mouth jumped at the snipe before her brain could stop herself. “A twin mattress with no box spring and no bed frame. You really are a virgin.”

“Pfffft,” Moca cracked up with a long loud laugh that sent her doubling over so low her head brushed the ground.

“I’m so sorry,” The weight of Chisato’s personality was too hard to keep upright. She fell backwards onto Moca’s bed. “Bitch is my default state these days.”

“Hey, I get it.” The bed shifted as Moca laid down beside her. Their legs both stretched off the edge of the mattress on to the floor below. “Moca-chan’s not always the nicest person either.”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever been nice.”

“Nice is overrated. I’m into mean girls anyway.”

“I’m aware.” Despite everything Chisato still had it in her to tease. Her head rolled to the side to catch a glimpse of Moca.

Moca looked like a mystery, illuminated by strips of orange street light let in by the blinds over the bed with eyes fixed on the ceiling above. Every time Chisato thought she’d caught on to Moca’s game she moved a little further away from her assumptions. She followed Moca’s line of sight back to the ceiling.

Now that her eyes were free of tears, she could finally see the ceiling clearly. Dotted across it in erratic patterns were dozens of faintly glowing plastic stars. They were the stuff of children’s bedrooms but they felt completely appropriate in Moca’s room. She didn’t need to ask, but she did anyway. “Did you put those up there?

“Yup. Brought them all the way from my old room. Some of my old ceiling is still stuck on there too. When I was a kid we took turns bouncing on my bed and slapping them up there. This time I used a ladder.”

Chisato hummed in response. Her eyes wandered over the ceiling. The room was so small that stars were densely packed together, forming new accidental constellations. There was a luminous jellyfish, a star made of stars, a lumpy circle almost like a loaf of bread. It was funny to imagine Moca sticking them up one by one, her tongue jutting just a little out of her mouth as she patted each one twice to make it stick. It was so silly to think about it almost made her forget things for a moment there in their quiet.

“You deserve to be okay,” Moca broke their tentative silence with her whisper.

If Moca was going to start preaching about Chisato’s inherent goodness now, Chisato would risk walking home in the middle of the night. “Are you the arbiter of who does and doesn’t deserve happiness now Moca?”

“Moca-chan didn’t say happiness,” Moca said wryly. She stretched up her hand and held it up to the ceiling so the tips of each finger aligned with a star above. “There are only four people in the world who deserve happiness.”

“Your friends.”

“Exactly, you remembered.”

“How could I ever forget my friendship being so coldly rejected?” Chisato folded her hands onto her chest and settled her shoulders into the springs to get more comfortable.

“No exceptions.” Moca’s smile was always audible. “Everyone else though, good people, bad people, even rich assholes, deserves to be okay. Not happy, happiness is too arbitrary. But they deserve a base line of okay.” Moca paused. Chisato could feel her squirm against the mattress. “At least that’s what Moca-chan thinks.”

Chisato let the words sink in, the tacit admission that she wasn’t okay ringing in her ears. Then she asked. “Even you, Moca Aoba?”

Moca laughed harshly. “We’re not talking about me, Chisato Shirasagi.”

“You’re not answering.”

And she continued to not answer. Moca just watched the ceiling with that clever smile.

Chisato sighed dryly, “If you don’t deserve to be okay, then I surely don’t either. Which makes us, according to Moca-chan’s rules of ‘okayness’, the only two people in the world who deserve our misery.”

“Well now you’re making it sound ridiculous.”

Moca and Chisato turned their heads inwards at the same time, abruptly finding themselves face to face once more. Moca’s cheeks flushed, more than they had when Chisato was manhandling her in the doorway. Chisato could feel her own face heating up too. The intimacy inspired such a vulnerability in Chisato.

Her voice came out in a whisper heavy with honesty. “What if this is as okay as I get? What if this awful, painful miserable feeling is ‘okay’ for me?” She clutched at the fabric of her blouse. “I don’t know that I can believe that there can be something better than this.”

“I can help with that,” Moca whispered back.

“What?”

“If you can’t believe it for yourself then I’ll believe there’s something better for you.” Moca patted her chest with a thump. “Leave it to Moca-chan.”

Chisato’s subtle smile snuck briefly onto her face. “Then I’ll believe in something better for you too.” They weren’t friends but maybe that was why the sincerity didn’t eat at her.

“That’s not—”

“It’s only fair.”

Moca frowned with a furrowed brow but she didn’t answer.

Chisato found herself struck with immense tenderness as she studied Moca’s face cast in shadows broken by a single streak of light. “You deserve to be okay too, Moca Aoba.”

“You should go to sleep. Moca-chan has a busy day of being a burden on society tomorrow.”

Chisato could tell there was no point in protesting, Moca didn’t want the insistence anymore than she did. “Alright.”

“Moca-chan knows the answer but… how do you feel?”

There was a lie in the front of her mouth but Chisato swallowed it down at the sight of Moca in the half light. “It hurts. It hurts so badly it feels unfair that I haven’t died from it.”

“Chisato,” Moca whispered her name. It didn’t sound like a name when Moca said it. She didn’t say it like it was holy but as if it was something she found half buried in the dirt and brought home to clean and polish. She reached her hand up to Chisato’s face. Chisato froze as Moca brushed back a single strand of a hair with a touch like an early drop of rain falling just ahead of its storm. “I can’t tell you it’ll stop hurting in the morning, but it’ll hurt different.”

The bed shifted again as Moca’s weight left it and Chisato behind. “Good night, Chisato Shirasagi.”

Chisato laid there perpendicular to the mattress until she heard Moca’s footsteps drift away and the door close behind her. She continued to lay there until she finally found the strength to lift the rest of her body onto the mattress, curl on top of the covers and soak Moca’s pillow as she was struck with the weight of everything she’d given up.

But eventually the body gave in and sleep came to her.

* * *

Daylight hit Chisato hard in the face. The slits of light that had been so magical at midnight were weaponized in the morning. The rays of the sun didn’t care for how exhausted her body still was. The sun rose regardless of any one person’s sadness.

Her sadness. For a brief moment right after she woke, Chisato only felt sore from how her back lay against the terrible mattress she’d slept on. Then she remembered why the mattress was lousy and everything else fell back into her chest from there. But Moca was right, it was a different hurt. Not a better hurt, but a different one. She’d survived the night, it wasn’t the blow that would kill her after all.

Chisato struggled off the bed. She was certain she looked like a disaster, though Moca’s closet sized room had no mirror for her to check. There was a compact in her purse she could use and a charger for her phone there as well though she couldn’t remember where she’d left the purse. Oh well, she’d find it and then a small enough coffee shop not to care who she was and charge her phone so she could call her driver for a lift. The privilege wasn’t lost to her but she had it so she might as well use it, especially for what it had cost her.

She carefully stepped around the piles of clothes and assorted other things on Moca’s floor that she’d somehow missed the night before. Maybe she’d send a maid service as a thank you, Chisato thought as she crept out the door and into the rest of the apartment. There wasn’t much she had to sneak through to find her purse. It rested against the side of the couch, just under Moca’s dangling fingers.

Moca lay curled on the couch, her body scrunched so tightly together she almost fit on a single cushion, save for the one hand hanging off the edge. With great amusement, Chisato noticed she drooled a little in her sleep, mostly onto the arm she used as a pillow.

It’d be a crime to wake up someone so perfectly asleep so Chisato did her best to slowly slide her purse away without ever letting Moca know she was there. She still owed Moca quite a bit and Moca was the sort of person who would never ask her to repay a debt. But Chisato would find a way.

She quickly exited the apartment, overwhelmed all at once by the sun and the air hitting her face and making sure she knew that the world had already forgotten her drama.

Ran Mitake was there too, leaning against the apartment building’s exterior hall railing just in front of the stairwell with a cigarette in her hands and her eyes cast out to the awakening Tokyo ward around her. As Chisato exited, Ran turned with wide and startled eyes. Smoke drifted out of her mouth in lazy twirls until she remembered to blow the rest away in a puff.

“Good morning, Mitake-san,” Chisato bowed deeply from her waist, “I apologize sincerely for last night.”

“It’s whatever.” Ran nodded to the cigarette in her hand, “Don’t tell Moca.”

Chisato eyed the cigarette. “Knowing her, she probably already knows.”

Ran sighed, running her free hand through her hair. “Probably.”

“May I?” Chisato motioned towards the pack in Ran’s shirt pocket. She didn’t usually smoke but miserable circumstances deserved special considerations.

Ran popped the pack out, flipping it over Chisato’s hand and tapping the bottom until a single cigarette fell into her open palm. “Need a light?”

“Please.” She slipped the cigarette into the corner of her mouth and leaned forward to let Ran flick on her lighter and place the flame against the end. Chisato sucked in. The tip of the cigarette glowed.

Smoke filled her insides. It started in her mouth and rushed down her throat until it could invade her lungs with burning pain and the smallest promise of some relief. It was quite nasty really. Chisato never bought cigarettes on her own—once she did she knew she’d never be able to stop.

Chisato let the smoke out with her breath. The trail of smoke made infinitely more aware of how much air her lungs pulled, as did the pain. She could see the exact moment she ran out of breath as the smoke dissipated into the cool morning air. She drug on the cigarette again as Ran did the same.

“I think we’re very similar, Mitake-san.” Chisato paused to pull and release. “May I offer some advice? For the cigarette.”

Ran’s scoff insisted she didn’t believe that but she let Chisato continue.

It wasn’t her place to meddle, but Chisato had never let that stop her before. “Have you ever heard of Pavlov and his dog?”

It wasn’t what Ran was expecting and that was enough to get her to respond in honest confusion. “Uh, yeah back in high school. That when the dog drools when a bell’s rung, right?”

“Technically yes. It’s about conditioning. A dog drools naturally when it’s fed. So you a ring a bell when it’s given food and eventually the dog drools when the bell is rung even when there’s no food at all.”

Ran watched her with suspicious eyes. Her cigarette smoldered in her fingers.

Chisato looked out to the street below where people were starting their Sunday morning pilgrimages back to the homes they should have slept in. “There are people like you and I who ring Pavlov’s bell over and over, promising the dog everything, knowing there is nothing. It doesn’t matter that the dog never gets fed, the conditioning is too strong. The dog can’t stop. The only way she can be free is if Pavlov stops ringing that damned bell.”

She took one last drag before carefully dashing out the cigarette and placing the remains in her purse. “Do you understand?”

Ran snubbed out the cigarette on the railing and flicked the butt onto the ground below with a huff. “That wasn’t advice.” But her angry eyes knew what Chisato meant.

Chisato bowed once more before she began to descend the stairs. “Goodbye, Mitake-san. You have a lovely home.”

Ran didn’t respond.

* * *

Moca’s back hurt. It was an annoying thing to wake up to but it was becoming more and more common now. But as her eyes opened and adjusted, she remembered it was because she had fallen asleep on her terrible couch and not her terrible bed. She really needed a better place to sleep.

With a crack in her shoulder and another in her elbow, Moca stretched out her body as far as it would reach. Not very. This was the beginning of the rest of her life, more aches and pains everyday from who knew where for who knew what reason. She rolled her shoulders and stretched out her neck. Did Chisato wake up like this too? She probably had some celebrity masseuse to work out all her kinks every morning. Moca would have to ask next time she saw her.

Next time? Why would there be a next time? There was nothing but coincidence and empathy between them. Sure, all her former resentment had turned into a weird sort of caring but that didn’t make them pals. Didn’t even make them loose acquaintances. They were just future funny stories to tell at parties to each other. That time a celebrity slept in her bed. That time an award winning actress slummed it in some bum’s apartment.

Moca stood up, rubbing her empty stomach. She probably had some left over something in the kitchen she could shove into her mouth. Then maybe she’d clean, the place could really, really use a deep clean. She wandered towards her fridge.

The front door opened and closed. Moca’s ear twitched just before a familiar voice interrupted her morning.

“Moca.”

Moca’s blood ran cold. She never had the fight instinct, just the flight and it was screaming for her to run far and run fast away from that voice. She’d heard Ran say those two syllables so many times in so many ways it was basically their own private language. But she’d only heard it said like that once before. Right before the only time she’d left her heart exposed enough to get broken.

Moca knew the world was about to end but she turned around anyway.

“We need to talk.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks Alice (silversilky) for giving this a read over for me!
> 
> Hoping the last part will be out sooner rather than later. It's a hard time to a happy ending.


End file.
